Lydia Netzer - How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“George,” said Irene. He popped awake.

“Yes,” he said.

“I told you my mother died three days ago, right?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, I have to go get her, and I’m not filling out any forms or organizing any sort of meeting with any sort of undertaker. I’ve sat in that lobby once, and looked at that damn parade of mouth-breathing dead people on that monitor, I’m not doing it again.”

“They’re not open,” George repeated. “And dead people—”

“George, if I go in there, and pick her up, and sign a form, then before I know it I’ll be picking out an urn. And if I pick out an urn, then I’m arranging a service, and if I’m arranging a service, then I’m buying a dress, and making a list of people, and composing an ad to go in the paper, and opening the house for a condolence party with cream cheese and olive sandwiches and ginger ale and lilies. Don’t you see I can’t do that? Condolences? It’s not even viable.”

“Probably you should though,” he said. She seemed so determined, and her adorable face was being very serious and fierce. He wanted to help her, even if it meant eating a dead person’s breathing mouth on cream cheese.

“I’m asking you one more time what was in that little bottle,” said Irene.

“Opiate,” said George, too medicated not to be honest. “It’s opiate. It’s totally legal and a prescription. A pre-scrip-tion,” he said slowly. “For me. Mine. My water buffalo. Mine.”

“Oh my god,” said Irene. She opened her mouth and shut it again. She started to laugh but then rolled her eyes instead. “At least you’ll have plausible deniability,” she said. “I’m sorry, officer, I was just helping my friend here steal her mother’s ashes. No, that’s not opium. That’s prescription embalming fluid!”

George frowned. He really wanted to lie down. The tentacles of his headache were being peeled away from his skull one by one by the medicine, and it was so helpful. If he could lie down, and sleep, perhaps with his face nestled in the crease between Irene’s breast and her upper arm, that would be even better. It actually was all perfectly legal. There had been doctors involved at all levels of the operation. Doctor, I have a terrible headache. What, again? Yes, and nothing seems to help. Here, let me get you this nasal spray. Take it if you need it, but by all means don’t take it and then break into a crematorium.

“Come on, George,” said Irene. “You have to boost me.”

“OK,” said George. He unfolded himself from her bitty little car and stood up and stretched. Immediately he felt better. He felt he could boost her, and steal these ashes. “Come on,” she said. “This is the part of the building with the crematorium. See the chimneys? Plus, you can’t get into this wing from inside, so you know. They must be doing something in there.”

George nodded and followed her. There were no other cars in the lot on this side of the building. There was one car in the lot on the other side, possibly a security guard or another early mourner or someone who had just cheated and parked here while headed to a restaurant, a theater, a bar, and then they had too many drinks, and they were like I can drive, and their friend was like no you can’t, and they were like where did I even park?

“George!” Irene was saying. He tried to listen to her very carefully, but she had walked all the way across the parking lot and was standing under one of the windows. It was high on the wall, possibly to prevent onlookers from viewing the furnaces being stoked, viewing the corpses being loaded into them, viewing the whole morbid spectacle. When George made it all the way across the parking lot and found he was standing next to her again he felt like crying with relief. Just to be near her, this familiar person, who felt like a warm, satisfying piece in his puzzle, shaped just right. His only disappointment was that he wasn’t kissing her.

“Boost me,” she said. She was holding a long piece of metal and another small device that looked like a battery.

“What are you going to do?”

“Apparently scale this brick wall by myself or go get a ladder,” said Irene impatiently.

He boosted her onto his shoulders. She sat there, fiddling with the piece of metal and the battery. Her thighs pressed against his ears. The back of his head was pressed into her lady bits through the black jeans. He could not resist bouncing her up and down a little bit. No one could have.

“Quit it,” she said, and dug her heel into his ribs. But then she put her hand on the top of his head and ran her fingers down through his hair, curling around his ear in the most pleasing, soothing, maddening way. He knew that if nothing else happened, and he just felt the magic sensation of that hand running its way down through his hair, he would have lived for a reason. He looked up at her, and she was threading the long piece of metal through the bottom of the window frame. It was like a yardstick. Once she’d got it through, she applied the little battery to one end and flipped a switch.

“It’s a shape-memory alloy,” she said. “Nickel titanium, to be exact.”

“You mean Terminator metal?”

“Yeah.”

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“I got it,” she said. “It’s commercially available.”

“For this particular application?”

She didn’t answer, but used the device on the end of the metal stick. When she applied the current to the metal, the part inside the window began to twist and shape itself into the form it had previously known. There was a reason for making metal like this, George knew, and it had to do with heart surgery and engine diagnostics. It did not have to do with robbing crematoriums. When she was satisfied with the shape of the memory metal, she gave a few quick jerks and the latch of the window swung free.

“I’m guessing it’s not armed,” she said. “The ones in the front weren’t, and that was where the money was kept. Back here is just dead people.”

“Great,” said George.

Irene lifted the window and flung herself up and through. For a minute her feet were dangling, and then she was inside. George stood on the green grass around the building, looking at morning bursting onto Toledo, hoping not to be too conspicuous against the brick wall.

“Come in,” he heard her call. “I’ll throw you out something.”

George leaned against the cool bricks. In a few seconds, she said, “Stand clear of the window.” But before his addled brain could figure out what that meant, there was a stool hurtling over the ledge and onto the grass. George picked it up and set it against the wall, using it to climb up on the ledge and through. Then they were both inside.

The crematorium was like an operating room, all brushed metal and shining tile, and in the dim light it had a bluish and sparkling tinge to it, as if it had all been recently wet. There were gurneys draped in white cloth, and there were instruments in racks, overhead lights in trapezoid shades, and two desks near the door. The minute he swept the room with his eyes, he knew that something here was very bad. There was a lurking presence, a gap in the air, a shadow in his vision. This was not a good time for his gods and goddesses to show up. Or, it was a very good time for them to show up, but not this one. This felt terrible. He was afraid. Apart from that fear, he found the crematorium was very much like a lab. It had the same look, but not the same feel.

“Come on,” said Irene.

The only door in the room was operated by one of those “panic bar” pressure handles, and George assumed the door was locked. There was no way out but the window, and he’d fallen six feet down to the floor. In a blaze of forethought that he paused to notice with pride, he grabbed another stool and set it by the window.